Fulbright Symposium

Pioneering Australian law blogger (now retired) Kimberlee Weatherall has asked me to plug the 2009 Fulbright Symposium, in Canberra 24-25 August 2009, which goes by the title “US-Australia Free Trade Agreement: The Last 5 Years, the Next 5 Years”. Speakers include original negotiators (Stephen Deady, and I think Mark Vaile), academics and trade commentators; including Professors Mac Destler, Bryan Mercurio and Justin Hughes as well as a range of Australian faces – right across the subject areas. There’s a full list/program at http://www.law.uq.edu.au/fulbright-program.

If ’twas me, I’d focus on the intellectual property clauses of the agreement. Whether US IP law is optimal within the US is one thing, whether it is optimal for a small economy that is always going to be a large net importer of IP is another. By signing up to US IP arrangements we’ve caused ourselves far more long-run damage than we’ve gained by selling a bit more beef to one particular country.